ZENTAI HARUKANI JINAI O IZU

"The whole body is out by far of dust."


Despite feeling a tad rough this morning -- as a result of unwholesome conduct committed by me, stemming from greed, anger and delusion, and performed with body, mouth and mind, all of which I now confess and regret -- I shall press on regardless.

In this introductory section of his Rules of Sitting-Zen for All, Master Dogen is still expressing his great realization that there is nothing for us to do, because the right thing does itself, the truth is inherent in us and our surroundings, Time's Arrow is already pointing everything in the right direction. Originally, all is whole.

The very word ZAZEN, sitting-zen, is just an expression of this great realization.

My first contact with Gudo Nishijima was as a result of me finding in a bookshop in Okinawa his book "How to Practise Zazen." Presumably it was because Gudo was not sufficiently versed in the use of the hyphen in English, because he didn't realize that he could use a hyphen to make sitting-zen into one word, that he left the word Zazen untranslated. Rather than go down the palpably false path of separating sitting-zen into "seated meditation" or some such travesty, Gudo followed the Olde English principle of If in doubt, do nowt. He left ZAZEN as Zazen. The person whose job it was to translate ZAZEN as sitting-zen, or sitting-dhyana, was me. But I didn't do it. I blew it.

It matters a lot, because, in the absence of sitting-zen or sitting-dhyana, people have started to use "seated meditation," which fosters a misconception about what sitting-zen is. Either that or they go on about practising ZAZEN, thereby dumping sitting-zen in the skip labelled "mystifying Japanese words," alongside not only traditional terms like JUKAI (receiving the precepts), ANGO (retreat), and HOSSU (whisk), but also spurious innovations like KYOSAKU (stick for whacking people on the shoulder) and SESSHIN (intensive practice period). People seem to like using those Japanese terms as if the Japanese terminology lent credibility to their practice. When I see that tendency I feel angry with myself. Because that tendency also exists in me, I remained blind to the fact that my single most important job as a translator was to translate ZAZEN as sitting-zen or sitting-dhyana. But I didn't do it. I blew it.

The sitting-zen of Master Dogen was never intended to be unwholesome. But "seated meditation" definitely tends towards the unwholesome.

To sit is the Buddha-Dharma and the Buddha-Dharma is to sit. To sit is wholesome.

To practice seated meditation is not wholesome. To practice seated meditation does not accord with the truth that the whole body is out by far of dust.

Similarly, to practice SHIKAN-TAZA is not necessarily wholesome. SHIKAN-TAZA means just sitting. Just sitting just means to sit. But we tend not to understand it like that. We don't just sit, in a wholesome manner. We conceive of something called SHIKAN-TAZA, involving pulling the chin into the neck et cetera, and we practice it willfully. We turn SHIKAN-TAZA into an end, and we practice endgaining, which tends not to be wholesome.

Endgaining is not necessarily unwholesome. When buddha goes directly for an end, no harmful side effects are generated in the process.

But if our underlying conceptions are false and if the vestibular functioning which is the foundation stone of human living is imperfect, then endgaining results in unwholesome conduct -- as a result of which, after a time lag in the short, medium, or very long term, a person is liable to wake up feeling rough and thereupon to lumber wearily towards his sitting-cushion, sadly lacking in the exuberance department.